QA at the foot of the cross-Christian teachers
QA at the foot of the cross-Christian teachers
God established the public ministry to teach his people, and yet there are passages that suggest all Christians are teachers. What does it mean for laypeople to be teachers even though they aren’t in public ministry?
The answer comes from a biblical understanding of the distinction between the public ministry and the priesthood of all believers. While both are wonderful gifts God has given to his church, the visible church has struggled to keep these twin blessings in biblical balance.
The church can emphasize public ministry to the detriment of royal priesthood or emphasize royal priesthood to the detriment of public ministry. The hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church would be an example of the former. The Quakers, who abolished the public ministry entirely, would be an example of the latter.
In a very real sense every Christian is a teacher of every other Christian. In our baptismal water we were all ordained priests of God, called to “declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness” (1 Peter 2:9). To use the terminology of Matthew 16:19 (as well as Luther’s Catechism), every Christian possesses the keys of the kingdom. Each of us is entrusted with speaking the Word that won our hearts to faith and keeps us in faith.
We see that as Paul addresses the entire Colossian congregation: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).
As we quietly and humbly rebuke a straying brother or sister in Christ, and, most importantly, forgive the penitent, each of us carries out that teaching task. As we speak words of gospel encouragement to a discouraged Christian, we exercise our priesthood. As we share our faith with someone at work who asks us about the hope we have, we serve as God-appointed teachers. In these and in a hundred other ways in daily life, God’s priests are teachers. In that sense, it is biblical to call us all teachers.
Yet, in another sense, we are not all teachers. We get a hint of that in these words from James: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1).
Scripture knows a kind of teaching that is different from the teaching we all do as royal priests. This is teaching done by one royal priest called to teach as the representative of Christ and other royal priests.
